As an avid county music fan and frequent Stagecoach attendee, it distresses me to see Confederate flags, a symbol of hate, flying at a such a great festival. Confederate flags are not a part of country music culture and they should not be allowed to fly at Stagecoaches in the future. The flag is not heritage, it was a rarely used symbol flown by soldiers fighting for the right to enslave black people. It was popularized by segregationists in the South during the 1960s, who opposed human rights for all people. In our current moment of reckoning with racial injustice it doesn’t seem right to continue to allow this racist symbol to fly at the Stagecoach festival.

As Nascar recently banned Confederate flags it is clear that Stagecoach could too. Flying a racist and hateful symbol at what is supposed to be a celebration of a music community only hurts this great genre. Help Stagecoach and country music be only the right side of history, and ban Confederate flags at the festival.